Remember when I said videos were coming...well I wasn't kidding. Creating a tutorial for Simon was just the boost I needed. It wasn't too painful. so I set a goal to create at least one video tutorial each month. You can definitely expect more videos and I am actually excited about it. No kidding, I shot that video about 20 times. My end result is not perfect, by any stretch, but I did my best - please keep that in mind when you watch it. I was nervous - very nervous. nuff said :)

Here is a peek of the card that I created for the video

Please visit the Simon Says Stamp blog to see my second video ever. I had to make one for Paper Crafts magazine years ago, so it's not technically my first video...but it is my first Paper Smooches video though :)I am excited to extend a fabulous discount for you, courtesy of Simon Says Stamp:

Use coupon code psmooches to receive 25% off all Paper Smooches stamps at the Simon Says Stamp store. You can use the code between today and October 1, 2012 at 11:59pm EST

I have another sneak peek for you today. Our October stamps release at midnight on October 1st. I used the new set called ALL YULE NEED. Betsy and Emily shared cards using this set yesterday. It's a quick and easy baby announcement...for those times when it miraculously happens around Christmas time. It can't be too rare, I know plenty of Christmas babies. The sentiment is from Pip Squeaks...the small stocking is from Hang Ups.

Thank you Simon...we are honored to be a part of your celebration. Congrats on 10 years..I wish you many, many more...
xx
Kim

It's Pep Rally week and we are here today to share a sampling of our
October stamp release with you! The three NEW clear stamp sets will be
available to purchase at 12:01am, Eastern time...on October 1st. You
will find them HERE.

To add extra fun to our blog hop...we are offering up a prize! Just
leave a comment on any of the five design team blogs listed below for
your chance to win one of the three new stamp sets! (you do not need to
comment on all blogs to qualify) You have until midnight MT on Friday,
September 28th to leave a comment. Please check all five blogs on
Saturday, September 29th to see if you are one of the five lucky
winners.

To increase your chances of winning:
1. Leave a comment on this blog post
2. Tell us that you Facebooked about our blog hop
3. Tell us that you Tweeted about our hop
4. Tell us that you posted on your blog about our blog hop
(which means that you have up to four chances to win on each blog)

I used the new CHILLY CHUMS stamp set along with Dippy Dots. I used Brilliance chalk ink since it works beautifully with solid stamps. FIVE images on this card came from the new set. Chilly Chums is a follow up to our very popular Chubby Chums and Chubby Chum Pals stamp sets. There are three other "wintery friends" on the set. I can wait to introduce them all to you.

Thanks for joining us today. We LOVE that you stopped by to see what we have been up to.
loves!
Kim

Wednesday, September 26, 2012

It's a term meaning commotion or party but I guess you could use it in this way... "well, that's a bunch of hullabaloo!" or "what's all of the hullabaloo going on over at Ed's house?". No, you won't catch me saying those things, but it's a dang fun word any ways :)

It's our last week with Jennie Moczan as our guest. She rocked our stamps! It was a pleasure "working" with her. Thank you so much Jennie....you are such a talented designer :)

I wanted to let you know about a special guest we will have in October. Our designer Laurie is dealing with some health concerns with her daughter and October is going to be a challenging month for her family. So I asked her if she would like to take the month off to concentrate on her sweet family. She kindly accepted. Her spot will be temporarily filled by the amazing Betsy Veldman. Betsy's guest spot starts tomorrow with our design team blog hop. I hope you will stop by to see her lovely Paper Smooches projects all month. I am very excited to "work" with her again.

I leave you with the same note from Jennie's last card...have a nice day
smiles,
Kim

Tuesday, September 25, 2012

OhEmGeee how fun!! I love the paper beams and gears! The sentiment is fabulous and I have to mention how freaking cool her scientist is...love him!

when Emily e-mailed this card to me she said...And they finally meet! I cracked up over this card. I was hoping that she would combine the two quirky men and she rocked this card. check out all of the wonderful details.

Have you seen our NEW SPARKS Challenge? Well, HERE it is. and ehem...there will be a design team call for the next group of designers over at our challenge blog. So be on the lookout - the call goes out on Oct. 1 I can't hardly wait to see who applies.

Monday, September 24, 2012

I hope you all had a nice weekend. Mine was nice :) I went searching for some dishes. We are hosting Thanksgiving dinner from this year on. So I want to find some white dishes so that I can add color around them. My goodness I was shocked to see how expensive they are - ack!! Needless to say that I am putting it off. I can't even begin to think about cooking...ugh, I kinda suck at cooking, so we'll see. I will be back asking for advice in November :) Until then, we have some really fabulous Thanksgiving cards to get us in the mood for such a heartwarming occasion.

The use of burlap really makes this card. I love Heidi's coloring and the full turkey feathers is fantastic!! Actually...this card is wonderful in every way - LOVE!!

It's cool how Kalyn chose yellow as her POP color also. The zig zag edges, twine and popped up Indian corn. Did you notice that she used the headdress from the Indian as a decorative panel? VERY cool!!

ok friends, I am off to start my day. LOTS of art going on over here (grin)
loves,
Kim

1. Stamp the animals onto white card stock and draw a line behind them wit a black marker.
2. The sentiment is computer generated. I printed it out and then stamped the quote bubble around it and added it to the white card stock panel.
3. I stamped the professor onto white card stock, stamped a thought bubble over him and cut the bubble out
4. Color the images with Copics
5. Color over the entire image with a nude colored Copic to "age" the paper.
6. Draw a faux signature the way comics do :)
7, Mat onto a black card stock base

I hope you have a creative day friends
....make that a creative weekend...
xx
Kim

Wednesday, September 19, 2012

Teri's card has a cool retro look. It kind of reminds me of a comic book! The bling adds the perfect touch, doesn't it?

It's our third week with Jennie and it's been so much fun having her. I look forward to seeing what she creates for next week :) I imagine these super sweet cards would be perfect for anyone at any age.

I hope you had a nice day yesterday and that today is even better :)
Thanks so much for stopping by today.
xoxo
Kim

Tuesday, September 18, 2012

Yay - Heidi posted the details on her blog about the card that I posted yesterday...check out how she created that amazing watercolor look!

I bought some washi tape this morning from Pick Your Plum. I used to wrap orders with bakers twine, but when the men in my life filled in when I was away, they had a heck of a time tieing a bow, LOL. So I switched to washi tape. I like it better than the twine and it really looks great! I also find beautiful washi tape at ETSY.

I made my first tutorial video yesterday. It went well...ummmm, ok. I am a dork, but I am guessing you already knew that. You will see the video at the end of this month. I set a goal to share a new video on the last Friday of each month. So please stay tuned!

Monday, September 17, 2012

We have FOUR winners to announce AND we have TWO amazing cards to share - yay!!

But first - THANK YOU for all of the amazing comments. I appreciate them more than you may know. I want to mention that I do not use a font of any kind, I use my hand to write all of our sentiments. (except for the Hope stamp set - I used a font on that one)

Friday, September 14, 2012

We are releasing our newest stamp set called Joyful Greetings on September 15th. Ordinarily a new "Kismet" stamp set is released on the 15th, but
this month we wanted to offer a Christmas theme sentiment set to
compliment the sets that will release on October 1st. You will find the
new stamp set HERE, tomorrow at midnight EST. We will release another Christmas sentiment set, a winter theme set and a Christmas image set...I am beyond excited about them all (huge grin)

The sentiment is from Joyful Greetings. The poinsettias were created with our Reflections stamp set. I also stamped the argyle pattern from Debonair behind the sentiment and I stamped Dapper on the background. It's subtle, so you may have to look close. Everything is stamped on textured card stock to give it a distressed look.

...and here is the entire set:

I have a Joyful Greetings stamp set to give
away to one lucky person! You have until midnight on September
16th to leave a comment. I will post the winner here on Monday,
September 17th.

Wednesday, September 12, 2012

**edited to add that this was supposed to be tomorrow's post, but for whatever reason I thought today was Thursday (smacks head). Sooo, I will be sharing cards from Teri and our Guest designer, Jennie tomorrow instead of today**

We found some truly inspiring cards in our Flickr gallery. It's always SO HARD to narrow it down to five - ack!!

These are the five gals that impressed us this month.

Jean Manis
I love the bold design of this card....the sentiment is a perfect match! The planet is fabulous :) I just love everything about this card - well done!
(Space Cadet)

Monday, September 10, 2012

Heidi's card literally made me laugh out loud when I first saw it! k, just laughed out loud again!! It's amazing at what you can do with markers :) This could quite possibly be my favorite card of all time.

Kalyn's card is so refreshing. I love the crisp colors and design. This is really such a pretty card.

Use this fabulous sketch to create a card in any or all of the following themes:

Thank You

Birthday

Blank

Thinking of You

Upload your card before the time runs out on September 16th and I will choose THREE random participants to receive one of our Circle of Honor stamp sets. A portion of every Circle of Honor set is donated to the wonderful OWH cause. If you already own this set, I am happy to change it out for another.

Create as many cards as you like. You do NOT need to use Paper Smooches (but it's much appreciated) Winners will be announced on Sept. 17

Friday, September 7, 2012

k, so I wanted so badly to include some cool hair on the set, but I was afraid that it wouldn't be a quick read. So I used a punched circle to make my turkey's fun hair. Isn't it fabulous? My niece's hair is much bigger than this, but I think it suits this silly guy! The sentiment is from Good Gab. I cut the two words apart so that I could stack them.

I have something fun planned for you on Sunday, so please stop on back. (blog candy is involved)

Thursday, September 6, 2012

Guest Designers will receive 2 NEW stamp sets, get a blog badge and will have their name and projects featured here on the PS blog for 4-5 weeks (depending on how many weeks there are in the month).

You will have approx. two weeks to show us your talent! You can submit as many projects as you like and past submissions are welcome. Guest designers are not chosen randomly. We will be looking for designers who stand out in one (or more) of the following categories:

great use of color

outstanding design

mad coloring skills

fun paper piecing

pure cleverness

You will need to use a Paper Smooches stamp or any of our FREE digi stamps. You can submit to our call with "old and new" projects...and projects that you create for our SPARKS Challenge are perfectly acceptable..The deadline is Wednesday, September 19th.

Our October guest designer will be announced on Thursday, September 20th If you have tried out in the past..I hope you reapply - We LOVE looking at your beautiful creations.

Wednesday, September 5, 2012

has a zillion design possibilities. I love timeless icons like gifts, cupcakes and balloons. The party hat is seriously overlooked, it's a right of passage for children. I admit that I don't like wearing party hats or name tags, but as a kid, I am sure that a party hat was on my head at some point. Check out what Teri created with our party hat-slash-triangle image from Hullabaloo.

Seriously - how COOL is this card??? I love that she left some triangles open and added paper to others.

I am excited to share cards by our newest guest designer - Jennie Moczan!!
I adore her clean cards. She has a way of making images POP!!
Here are her Great Chemistry cards...see what I mean. Our stamps jump off her card - LOVE that!!

Tuesday, September 4, 2012

This was such a fun set to put together. I asked my husband and sons to spout off chemistry/science words in the car and they poured out of their mouths. This helps to brainstorm image and sentiment possibilities. I had a blast concepting it!! (apparently "concepting" is not a word, because spell check says so...but I refuse to say "conceptualizing", it's weird to say, making it a dumb word, IMHO.)

Emily did a fabulous job with our mad scientist from the new Great Chemistry stamp set. I LOVE how he is holding the flask/beaker...not sure what it's called exactly. I hadn't thought to have him hold things that way - wicked cool!!

I never thought chemistry could look so pretty! I am in love with the papers that Laurie chose. I am seriously drooling over every inch of this card (swoooon)

Click HERE to play along with our challenge!

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About me

Hello everyone! My name is Kim Hughes and I am the owner and Illustrator for Paper Smooches. I LOVE sharing my art with the world & I hope my fun and unique designs make you smile. Thank you for visiting us, I am so happy you are here.